Religious festivals

were taken from their homelands and traditions to work as slaves in the New World. While in captive, slaves used their spirituals to pass times while working, communicate without outsiders knowing, and most importantly to keep connected with their religious beliefs. Before 1865 spirituals were known as “shouts”. Hand clapping, foot tapping, and deep humming were usually involved in the “shouts” and the tunes were closely related to those of hymns from the bible. African American spirituals sent messages

While most Americans generally think positively of the Bible, not many have actually read much of it, according to a new survey released on [Tuesday]. According to the survey, conducted by LifeWay Research, 20 percent of Americans said they have read the entire Bible at least once. Twelve percent said they read almost all of it, and 15 percent said they read at least half of it. But a greater proportion have read bits and pieces of the Bible, the study showed. Thirty percent said they have read

After reading The Art of the Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter, I feel I have a better understanding of the literary techniques used in the biblical text. These are definitely techniques as readers we all need to familiarize ourselves with. He has opened my eyes to a deeper understanding of the Bible, but also specific stories within the Hebrew Bible, which I have always found fascinating. Through Alter’s analyzation, I can see how the use of the rubrics has enabled me to connect with the biblical

Personally, Bible reading has increase over the years tremendously. There were years of not owning a Bible at home, during my childhood or adult years of life. There was a struggle at one point learning how to read the Bible, that is, people talk about the story that was inside the Bible, but there was no personal reading time. The initial purchase of a Bible was in the year of 1993, by a door-to-door sales person whose Bible resemble a purse. Even then, the Bible collect dust on the self, because

I attended the Sunday service at Tabernacle Baptist Church and made several observations about gospel music in African American churches. Music is used as a tool of worship and praise as it is sung at several points of the service. Most of the singing is done during the praise and worship section of the service. Moreover, gospel music is also used to emphasize on the message of the preacher. At times the pastor would accompany a crucial point with a song before embarking back on his sermon. Gospel

1.Some potential benefits of historical critical method for reading scripture is that it shows the story of what exactly happened and the reason for doing so. Historical critical method also understands the significance of events and interprets them. The drawbacks of the historical critical method are that the information can be limited. Historians only know so much about the past. Also the historical critical method scrutinizes the divinity of the bible. The potential benefits of typology are that

Reading Report: I have read 100% of the weekly readings The three factors involved in Biblical Interpretation are: Source/Author, Text, and Hearer/Receptor. The Source/Author introduces the reader to the work. “When reading a text, there is need for an understanding of the author and the world in which he or she lived.” (Middendorf p. 13) It is imperative that the background of the source/author is known as this will shed more light on the accuracy of the work. The Source could be a verbal account

A Critical Analysis of Evangelical Biblical Interpretation The Bible is not read simply because the information it brings about the ancient Israel or the early church, this is irrelevant to the reader searching for more than an ancient story. It is read because men believe that in it they find expressed something about God’s acts, intentions and demands. Among the evangelical world, the Bible is accepted as the word of God spoken to humans. However, are those words intended to be without error

struggled to decide on whether to give students the freedom of religious expression at school. This difficult topic is especially prevalent in many public schools today. Most public schools comply with the separation of church and state by instating rules against any kind of religious expression, essentially mandating conformity among students in terms of religious expression. Some schools, however, have decided to place no restrictions on religious expression. This serves to promote individual freedom among

As Scott Duvall and Daniel Hays state in Grasping God’s Word, every copy of the Bible today is a translation, “unless everyone wants to learn Hebrew and Greek (the Bible’s original languages)… (Duvall and Hays 23). This being the case, people may debate which translation is more accurate; however, the best way to understand the Bible is by reading several different translations and comparing them to one another. The main reason several translations helps people grasp the full meaning of Scripture